high as they had been low, and he was striding
up and down the room like a mad thing.

"But how did you get it for me?" he kept demanding. The captain bade him
stop.

"Never mind how I got it," he declared. "I got it, and you've got it,
and you'll have to be satisfied with that. Don't ask me again, George."

"I won't, but--but I can't understand Mr. Phillips giving it back. He
didn't have to, you know. Say, I think it was mighty generous of him,
after all. Don't you?"

Sears's lip twitched. "It looks as if somebody was generous," he
observed. "Now run along, George, and fix up that letter to your
brother-in-law."

"I'm going to. I'm going now. But, Cap'n Kendrick, I don't know what to
say to you. I--why, great Scott, I can't begin to tell you how I feel
about what you've done! I'd cut off my head for you; honest I would."

"Cuttin' off your own head would be consider'ble of a job. Better keep
your head on, George.... And use it once in a while."

"You know what this means to me, Cap'n Kendrick. To my future and--and
maybe some one else's future, too. Why, _now_ I can go--I can say----
Oh, great Scott!"

Kendrick opened the bedroom door. "Come now, George," he said. "Good
night--and good luck."

Kent would have said more, much more, even though Judah Cahoon was
sitting, with ears and mouth open, in the kitchen. But the captain would
not let him linger or speak. He helped him on with his coat and hat,
and, with a slap on the back, literally pushed him out into the yard.
Then he turned on his heel and striding again through the kitchen
reentered the spare stateroom and closed the door behind him. Judah
shouted something about its being "not much more'n two bells"--meaning
nine o'clock--but he received no answer.

Judah did not retire until nearly eleven that night, but when, at last,
he did go to his own room, there was a light still shining under the
door of the spare stateroom and he could hear the captain's footsteps
moving back and forth, back and forth, within. For two hours he had so
heard them. Obviously the "old man" was pacing the deck, a pretty sure
sign of rough weather present or expected. Mr. Cahoon was troubled, also
disappointed. He would have liked to talk interminably concerning the
sensational news of Miss Snowden's inheritance; he had not begun to
exhaust the possibilities of that subject. Then, too, he was very
anxious to learn where Captain Sears had been all day, and why. He tried
in vari